Where is that Paragon Vanguard love?!

BioWare have used this year’s PAX East show to present an interesting infographic that breaks down the choices Mass Effect players have made throughout the series. Unfortunately, the majority of players, when presented with a goody-two-shoes male soldier and told they could be anything else, chose to change nothing at all. Exaggerated sigh.

Some other interesting tidbits from the infographic show that over 88.3 million hours have been logged in the single-player campaigns worldwide, that Liara and Garrus are the two most popular squad members with Ashely and Kaidan right at the bottom — and an amazing 64% of players not seeing Wrex in the third and final game due to, uh, reasons.

If you still haven’t played any of the Mass Effect games for some bizarre reason, you can buy all three on sale for $40 on Origin at the moment, which is a pretty decent price for the amount of gameplay you’re going to get out of it.

On a positive note, doesn’t it indicate that most people aren’t cruel bastards? :p

Personally, as to alignment I blame the paragon/renegade system, which has the same flaws any other alignment-tracking system does. It provides benefits for reaching the extreme of either end, therefore making people unwilling to engage in acts that are (clearly stated or otherwise) to run counter to their chosen alignment. It encourages and almost necessitates the need to chose one way or the other right off the bat.

As for the male soldier, I couldn’t say. Be interesting to know what the demographics are for the actual *players*, but that information would be more difficult to determine.

I would like to think that this shows that the majority of gamers are good people and not psychopathic murderers as many publications would like us to believe. :P

I’m happy to say I played a stock male and did the good options. The thing for me is that if there’s a canonical way to play I want to do it that way. I don’t want to waste my time creating a look for the character when there’s already a canonical look for them. Happy to do it for games that have no defined look like Elder Scrolls or Saints Row where the options are seemingly limitless but in a game like Mass Effect where there is a canonical way to play (and coupled with limited customization options anyway) i’d rather do it the way the devs intended.

Another point is that the moral system in the vast majority of games is fundamentally flawed, there’s little choice there other than select all good responses, or select all bad responses as to do a mix based on the situation results in an inconsistent character (my character, that was just such a Saint to that other dude, just randomly shot that guy in the foot because he was a little annoying? what?) that gets none of the benefits of either alignment.

The Witcher is really the only series that have gotten moral choices right so far.

tl;dr

I like playing the canonical way if there is one and no matter how I try I can’t make evil choices anyway, I feel bad and then feel sad when no one likes me anymore. :(

gnavin: Personally, as to alignment I blame the paragon/renegade system, which has the same flaws any other alignment-tracking system does. It provides benefits for reaching the extreme of either end

Actually not true of ME3. They changed the system so your paragon and renegade totals are added to provide a total which dictates whether or not you can choose a convo option.

I’m amazed Bioware still have the options to customise your character at all. If it’s only for the benefit of 18% of players it seems like wasted effort. I love being able to customise my game, but certainly don’t expect to for much longer if I’m being massively outvoted by people who apparently just mash the start button until they’re allow to shoot something.

I still can’t believe 82% of people have completely missed Jennifer Hale’s enormously superior voice acting of Shepard.

Edit – WTF? Who the hell are the 3.8% who shot Mordin? I hate you all.

ooshp:
I still can’t believe 82% of people have completely missed Jennifer Hale’s enormously superior voice acting of Shepard.

So true! They may as well have used the stock standard Microsoft Text To Speech voice for Manshep.
If given a choice in any game that allows freedom to play in unconventional ways, I almost always choose the more interesting one. Chaotic Good Femshep, Diplomacy in Civ, Economy play in Stronghold, etc.
I think Skyrim was the only game where I’ve used a male character for some time because Skyrim had some good beards.
I guess I just want to see more female leads in games (and beards).

I watched some videos of female Shepherd and while the acting was a bit better than Male Shepherd the voice itself sounded out of place for some reason. Though again I think you could 90% blame marketing for almost everyone playing male Shepherd.

I did a slightly tweaked Male Shep myself all the way from ME1 (where I honestly couldn’t be stuffed altering him much). I finally relented and got ME3 cheap so have finished the series and through all of it have all ended up being paragon in the end even with some Mordin shooting and generally choosing the “smack the person in the chops” action when presented.

Of course the game is geared towards making you The Saviour of the Universe with all the hero choices and not the I’m Spaces Greatest A-hole award which a much smaller percentage strived for.

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